Virtual World versus Real World
 

Virtual World versus Real World

Wo/man worships and fears power; we enthusiastically give our loyalty to our leader. Sapiens are at heart slavish. Therein lay the rub, as Shakespeare might say.

Freud was the first to focus upon the phenomenon of a patient’s inclination to transfer the feelings s/he had toward her parents as a child to the physician. The patient distorts the perception of the physician; s/he enlarges the figure up far out of reason and becomes dependent upon him. In this transference of feeling, which the patient had for his parents, to the physician the grown person displays all the characteristics of the child at heart, a child who distorts reality in order to relieve his helplessness and fears.

Freud saw these transference phenomena as the form of human suggestibility that makes the control over another, as displayed by hypnosis, as being possible. Hypnosis seems mysterious and mystifying to us only because we hide our slavish need for authority from our self. We live the big lie, which lay within this need to submit our self slavishly to another, because we want to think of our self as self-determined and independent in judgment and choice.

The predisposition to hypnosis is identical to that which gives rise to transference and it is characteristic of all sapiens. We could not function as adults if we retained this submissive attitude to our parents, however, this attitude of submissiveness, as noted by Ferenczi, is “The need to be subject to someone remains; only the part of the father is transferred to teachers, superiors, impressive personalities; the submissive loyalty to rulers that is so widespread is also a transference of this sort.”

Freud saw immediately that when caught up in groups wo/man became dependent children once again. They abandoned their individual egos for that of the leader; they identified with their leader and proceeded to function with him as their ideal. Freud identified man, not as a herd animal but as a horde (teeming crowd) animal that is led by a chief. Wo/man has an insatiable need for authority.

People have an insatiable need to be hypnotized by authority; they seek a magical protection as when they were infants protected by their mother. This is the force that acts to hold groups together, intertwined within a mutually constructed but often mindless interdependence. This mindless group think also builds a feeling of potency. The members feel a sense of unity within the grasp of their leadership.

‘Why are groups so blind and stupid?’ Freud asked; and he replied that mankind lived by self delusion. They “constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” The real world is too frightening to behold; delusion changes this by making sapiens seem important. This explains the terrible sadism we see in group activity.

Questions for discussion

Is there a vital difference between human sciences (such as psychology) and natural sciences (such as physics)?

Is it possible for humans to create a virtual world that is more important than the real world? What is the difference between a virtual world and the real world?

I feel like I've just wandered into an exam hall.

You know for a moment there, I banned him. But what I decided to do is one better: I turned on instant thread notification for him.

A copy of all messages added to his threads will be sent to his Hotmail account, immediately as they're posted.

This one will be the first. You post unsolicited messages? You gottem right back buddy!

If nothing else, it will make his threads very popular.

The Real World: San Francisco vs. Wayne's World

[Wayne's World totally wins.]

Virtuosity vs. Reality Bites

[Russell Crowe FTW.]

FTW?

For The Win

I like virtual worlds. I really, really like them.

Will anything posted by Coberst help me to survive on the battlefield?

I have an insatiable need. It's not to be hypnotised by authority though.

Sorry, I dozed off there for a minute ... did I miss anything?

Well we were all just agreeing that Freud was right.
In fact I've just confessed that I want to have sex with my father and I have penis envy. And if I get upset about anything it can be classified as hysteria which makes it directly realted to the fact I have a womb.

Oh and if I have therapy I will fall in love with my therapist even if he is a dirty old Austrian who hates women.

That's about all.

I have no comment - just sharing info

The real world is better than the virtual world. People make assumptions, that is, they make up the bits they don't know about people to fill in the blanks, in a virtual world.

This is never a good way to go.

Any virtual world is a good place to visit once in a while, but it's better to live in the real world.

Yes, psychology is the study of thought and human behaviour. Physics is the study of the natural world. It has very little to do with human behaviour.

Yes plenty of people do. That's why we have the internet and mental facilities. The difference is that virtual is not real, and real is real even though it's still a construction of our prior learning.

Or you can just go and watch the matrix. That movie will tell you the opposite of what I've said.